Finding Hope When Life Unravels

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We know life can be fragile, but most of us just continue living through one day after the other. We believe we have plenty of time left … until something happens to change our perspective.

A few weeks ago, as I was getting ready to hop into bed – I heard a gunshot. The cat jumped straight up, turned horizontal in midair and ran into the next room.

I stood there a moment, thinking … no glass shattered so nothing came through the window. Was it a drive-by shooting? What should I do?

Then the doorbell rang. I hurried downstairs and peeked outside before I opened the door to my neighbors – the folks who live on the other side of my duplex wall.

He was standing on my steps with a towel wrapped around his bleeding hand. She seemed worried as she asked over and over, “Are you all right? Are you all right?”

“Yes. What happened?”

“He was reaching into his strong box to check his weapon and it went off. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, “but you have young children. Are they okay? And what about your hand?”

“The bullet went through my hand,” he said. “We’re on our way to the ER, but then we saw the bullet went through our adjoining wall. That’s why we wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Well,” I said, “my son and I just prayed for protection tonight. I guess God was with us.”

They drove to the hospital while I waited for the police. I knew whenever a weapon is discharged, officers will come to check it out. Within the hour, the doorbell rang again and this time, as I peeked through the window, I saw the shiny badge.

Throughout our investigation that night, the officer and I figured out what had happened.

The bullet came through the wall at an angle, then through my headboard, grazing my pillows. It continued through the opposite wall and outside the house. So I had two bullet holes in my interior walls, one in the outside of the house, one through my headboard, two adjacent holes through my pillow cases and none through me.

However, if I had been in the bed or even bending over to fluff my pillows, the bullet would have struck me.

The officer shook his head and said, “Ma’am, the good Lord was with you tonight.”

“Yes, as he is always. I guess it wasn’t my time.”

Throughout the next days, my neighbors apologized frequently. They fixed all the damage and even brought me some beautiful flowers.

The experience gave me the opportunity to speak of my faith to my neighbors and to remind my son once again that I love him.

Because life is short. Because none of us knows how much time we have. Because we live in a scary world.

The experience also reminded me to make every day count, to love and laugh and live abundantly.

Then to hang on to the hope that assures me … someday the end will come and I will graduate to heaven.

Hope hangs on to the smallest threads of life and still believes every day has a purpose. Even if we can’t find our purpose through a particular season of life, God knows how everything fits together.